Originally Posted by
BigNastyDefense
I don't see the big deal here.
Basically, he's right. Stats are overrated if you're not winning games. Newton had an excellent season stat-wise, however the Panthers still lost a bunch of games last season, which makes those stats moot.
And Alex Smith didn't have a bad season at all, like so many people think. 90.7 QB Rating, 61.3 Completion Percentage, 3144 yards, 17 TD, 5 INT
He was finally in an offense that was tailored to his strengths instead of asking him to do things that he wasn't very good at. The offense wasn't built to hide the QB, it was made to enhance what he does well. Does it rely on a good run game out of Gore? Yeah. But when you have a back as good as Gore, you lean on him. Then Smith was able to use the play-action passing game to freeze defenses and make plays.
The main problems through Smith's career has been injuries (early in his career the offensive line was pretty crappy and he got beat up a lot). The other problem was that every single year, he had a new offensive coordinator. He's had three head coaches, the first two being defensive minded ones. Each coordinator wanted to change Smith and try to make him do this or that better. Harbaugh came in and did the smart thing, tailored the offense around his strength's instead of trying to fix his weaknesses.
And if it's not for a muffed punt in the NFC Championship Game, the 49ers would have gone to the Super Bowl. That loss wasn't on Smith. Smith played a good game in that game with 2 touchdown passes. And in the divisional playoff game, he had 299 yards and 3 TD passes to beat the most prolific passing offense in NFL history.